1 Giulio - Paul V

Paul V — born Camillo Borghese — spent much of his pontificate in open conflict with Venice over questions of clerical jurisdiction, a dispute that ended in papal interdict in 1606 and badly damaged Rome's political authority in northern Italy. Ferrara itself had only come under direct papal control in 1598, when Clement VIII seized it upon the extinction of the Este male line, making these provincial issues still relatively new as an administrative exercise when this giulio was struck.

The giulio denomination takes its name from Pope Julius II, who introduced it in the early sixteenth century as a grosso-equivalent for the Roman market.